Applied AI Weekly News

Justin Grammens

Welcome Applied AI Weekly Readers to the latest issue! I'm thrilled to once again share with you the most interesting articles I've found this past week on Artificial Intelligence. I hope you agree, but I feel that there are articles for every reader to get value from.

Before we go there, here are a few things I wish to share.

Upcoming Events

If you haven't heard already the Fall Applied AI Conference is scheduled for Nov 15th. The call of speakers is open and tickets are on sale. THIS WILL SELL OUT - so hurry and get your tickets today!
I'll be speaking at the Midwest Architecture Community Collaboration Conference ( MACC ) on Nov 7th. Details on speakers and how to purchase tickets can be found on their website. I look forward to seeing you there!
If you haven't heard, I'm leading ongoing workshops and study clubs as part of my AI Innovation Lab. I'm studying both Retrieval Augmented Generation and Agentic AI at these sessions. Interested in learning more and joining us? Read the details and register.

A Bit of Thanks

I spoke last week on Artificial Intelligence to more than 60 people at the City of Lake Rotary Club. What an amazing experience! Thank you to everyone who attended. Great conversations and questions during and after the event. I love sharing how AI can help your business and career!
I had an amazing time speaking at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Texas Association for Home Care & Hospice on Sept 11th. I'm extremely blessed to have been asked to come to Austin, TX, and share my thoughts on how Artificial Intelligence is already impacting Home Care & Hospice!
I completed two speaking sessions at the Midwest Health Promotion Conference on Wednesday, September 25th. The theme this year is Memories, Milestones, Momentum. Thank you to everyone who attended and all the diligent work that was done by the conference organizers
I'm continuing to offer free consultations and workshops with many business leaders on how AI is changing the landscape of how you will run your business today and into the future. Connect today and book a meeting with me.

Now that we have that covered, please enjoy the articles and videos I have spent time finding and curating for you this past week. The videos provide a much more interactive and real-world experience of the applications.

Finally, please do reach out if there's anything you feel I might have missed. Enjoy!

News

Introducing Computer Use, a New Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3.5 Haiku

Anthropic is introducing a groundbreaking new capability in public beta: computer use. Available today on the API, developers can direct Claude to use computers the way people do—by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the first frontier AI model to offer computer use in public beta. At this stage, it is still experimental—at times cumbersome and error-prone. We're releasing computer use early for feedback from developers, and expect the capability to improve rapidly over time.

The State of Tech Talent in Minnesota

The Minnesota Technology Association is leading a collaborative effort to address workforce challenges facing technology-enabled businesses in Minnesota and helping to expand the pool of talent needed to fill the information technology jobs of the future. With financial support from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), MnTech retained the services of RealTime Talent to do an in-depth analysis of Minnesota’s tech talent supply and demand, offering a data-driven forecast that can help shape our state’s workforce strategies.

Agents Are the Future AI Companies Promise — and Desperately Need

Humans have automated tasks for centuries. Now, AI companies see a path to profit in harnessing our love of efficiency, and they’ve got a name for their solution: agents.

AI agents are autonomous programs that perform tasks, make decisions, and interact with environments with little human input, and they’re the focus of every major company working on AI today.

OpenAI Launches New 'Canvas' ChatGPT Interface Tailored to Writing and Coding Projects

The product opens a separate window, beside the normal chat window, with a workspace for writing and coding projects. Users can generate writing or code directly in the canvas, and then highlight sections of the work to have the model edit. Canvas is rolling out in beta to ChatGPT Plus and Teams users on Thursday, and Enterprise and Edu users next week.

Sponsor

Applied AI Conference Fall 2024

Join us for a full day of conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and their applications to our world. Together we will explore all aspects of Artificial Intelligence and its applications in areas such as Healthcare, Retail, Marketing, the Internet of Things, Agriculture, and all aspects from developer tools to applications with ChatGPT, Computer Vision, NLP, and Voice with chatbots. Everyone and all skills and interests are welcome!

Business

Serial Founders Mallin and Litman Sell AI Company Lucy

The fifth acquisition or exit for the Minnesota tech entrepreneurs, Lucy's Answer Engine becomes part of a suite of AI tools for enterprise organizations.

Treasury Department Now Using AI to Save Taxpayers Billions of Dollars

The latest benefit from the artificial intelligence revolution: saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. The Treasury Department said its increased use of artificial intelligence in fraud detection helped prevent or recover more than $4 billion in losses over the past year.

In a release Thursday, officials said the Treasury Department had been leaning especially into machine learning, which involves analyzing large quantities of data, to detect patterns of fraud commonly used by criminals.

Asana Launches a No-Code Tool for Designing AI Agents

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise across workplaces and industries. From performing admin tasks in meetings to helping with sales calls, AI agents are steadily being introduced across many tasks, including absorbing busywork, automating processes, and functioning as accessible software-building tools. Now, the workflow platform Asana has released its offering.

Development

AI Image Generator Shoot-Out: I Tested ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Meta AI to Crown a Winner

The competition between Google Gemini’s Imagen, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Meta AI is fierce. After experimenting with them individually, I decided to conduct a side-by-side comparison to truly see which is the best AI image generator right now.

With AI-generated imagery becoming a key part of creative work, each platform has its own strengths. I put the AI models to the test a mix of realistic and simplistic prompts to assess how the different AI models handle various subjects. My goal was to determine which AI could generate the most impressive results across five basic categories.

Here's a look at how each platform faired based on the quality of the generated images, and which ultimately came out on top.

I've Been Testing ChatGPT Canvas - Here's Why I Think It's the Most Important AI Tool of the Year

OpenAI revealed its new ChatGPT Canvas feature last week, a new approach to interacting with artificial intelligence that turns it more into a collaborator than something that does the work for you. Essentially, it is a new AI-first writing and coding editor built into ChatGPT.

On the surface, it is very similar to the Artifacts feature from Anthropic. Built into Claude, Artifacts allows you to see the output from certain types of AI generation, including code, text, and vector graphics, inside an independent view instead of inline in the chat window.

Distributional Raises $19M to Automate AI Model and App Testing

Distributional, an AI testing platform founded by Intel’s former GM of AI software, Scott Clark, has closed a $19 million Series A funding round led by Two Sigma Ventures.

Clark says that Distributional was inspired by the AI testing problems he ran into while applying AI at Intel, and — before that — his work at Yelp as a software lead in the company’s ad-targeting division.